Travelex Travellers Cheque Encashment Form: Fee, Mailing, and Estate Claims

The Travelex Travellers Cheque Encashment Form is the paper claim you complete, sign, and post to Travelex in Peterborough along with your original defaced cheques so the company can wire the proceeds, minus a 7% service fee, to your bank account. Travelex no longer sells new cheques, but existing ones do not expire and hold their full face value. The blank form is a free PDF on the Travelex UK site.¹

Which Cheques the Form Covers

Travelex processes encashment for three brands through this form: Thomas Cook–MasterCard, Interpayment–Visa, and Travelex–MasterCard.¹ American Express travellers cheques are not handled here; they go through a separate American Express redemption process.²

Only the original purchaser can submit a claim. If a friend or relative gave you their cheques, Travelex will not process your form; the purchaser has to contact Travelex themselves. The one exception is an estate claim by an executor, covered further down.

Cheques in different currencies need separate forms. USD cheques and EUR cheques go on two forms, even if you mail them in the same envelope.

What to Have Ready Before You Start

Missing any one of these items will hold up the claim.

The original physical cheques. Photocopies are not accepted, and you will deface the originals before mailing, so copy the front and back of each one for your own records first.
A black-and-white photocopy of your passport or full driving licence. The copy must show both your photograph and your signature.¹
The serial number and denomination of every cheque. These are your only reference if the package is lost in transit.
Full bank details for the receiving account. Travelex pays by wire only. You need the bank’s name and address, SWIFT/BIC code, IBAN if applicable, and account number. U.S. account holders should also have the ABA routing number.¹

Filling Out the Form

Write everything in capital letters. The form is partly scanned by machine, and lowercase or cursive causes delays or rejection.¹

Section 1: Cheque Information

Enter the currency printed on the cheques, the number of cheques you are submitting, and their combined face value. Every claim uses this section.

Section 2: Customer Details

Your name, date of birth, email, phone number, postal code, and country. “Customer” means the person who bought the cheques. Executors filing an estate claim skip this section and use Section 3 instead.

Section 3: Estate Claims

Only for executors redeeming cheques on behalf of a deceased holder. It asks for the deceased’s name, date of birth, and date of death.

Section 4: Bank Details

Enter the account where the funds should be wired. Circle your preferred payment currency from the options listed on the form. If you would rather not put your bank details on the same page as the rest of your information, you can email them separately to travellerscheques@travelex.com and tick the box on the form indicating that you have done so. Forgetting to tick the box or to send the email will stall the claim.¹

Sign in the space provided. The signature has to match the one on the ID you send. An unsigned form is returned without processing.

Defacing Your Cheques

Every cheque must be defaced before it goes in the envelope, so a lost package cannot be cashed by anyone else. For each cheque:

Counter-sign it in the lower signature space if you have not already.
Cross through your counter-signature and write “VOID” across the face.
Physically damage it by cutting off the top left corner with scissors or punching a hole through it.¹

Photocopy each cheque, front and back, before you deface anything, and write down every serial number. Once the originals are in the mail, those copies and numbers are your only record.

The 7% Fee and Currency Conversion

Travelex deducts 7% of the total face value. On $1,000 of cheques you receive $930 before any currency conversion.³

If your bank can accept a deposit in the same currency as the cheques, the 7% is the only deduction. Ask for a different currency and Travelex routes the conversion through British pounds first. USD paid out in EUR actually runs USD to GBP to EUR, which means two exchange-rate spreads. The rate applied is the one Travelex’s Central London store quotes at 7:30 a.m. on the day your cheques reach the processing center.¹ Requesting payment in the cheque’s original currency sidesteps the double spread, so check whether your bank can receive a foreign-currency wire before you commit to a conversion.

Where to Mail It

Send the completed form, all defaced originals, your ID photocopy, and any supporting documents to:

Travellers Cheques Encashment Services Ltd
Worldwide House
Thorpe Wood
Peterborough PE3 6SB
United Kingdom¹

There is no online portal for the cheques themselves; postal submission is the only route. Use a trackable, insured service. Until Travelex logs the cheques into its system, the originals are the sole proof of your claim.

After You Send It

The processing center checks each serial number against its records to confirm the cheque has not already been cashed, cancelled, or reported stolen. Once your bank details are validated, Travelex initiates a wire for the face value minus the 7%. The company does not publish a guaranteed turnaround, so expect several weeks. Anything missing or unclear triggers an email from Travelex and adds more time.

Your bank may charge an incoming wire fee of its own when the funds arrive. Once the money lands, the cheques are fully cancelled.

Estate Claims

An executor named in the will can redeem the cheques on the same form. Complete Section 1 and Section 3, skip Section 2, and enter the estate’s receiving account in Section 4. Along with the form and the defaced cheques, include:

A photocopy of the death certificate.
Black-and-white ID copies for every executor named in the will or grant of probate.
Black-and-white ID for the deceased showing their signature.
A black-and-white photocopy of the will or grant of probate, if available.¹

If there is no will or grant of probate, send the rest and Travelex will follow up with instructions. Where several executors are named but the payment should go to a single account, include a signed letter from all of them confirming that arrangement.¹

If the Cheques Are Lost or Stolen

The encashment form is only for cheques you still physically hold. If yours are missing, do not use this form. Contact an American Express Travellers Cheque Customer Service Centre and have your serial numbers ready; they run a reimbursement claim rather than an encashment. Signing each cheque in the upper left corner at the time of purchase is a prerequisite for reimbursement, so unsigned cheques that go missing are much harder to recover.⁴

1
Travelex. Travellers Cheque Encashment Form
2
American Express. Redemption of American Express Travelers Cheques
3
Travelex. Travellers Cheques – Travelex, Visa Interpayment and Thomas Cook Mastercard
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Travelex UK. Travellers Cheques Frequently Asked Questions